Director Kim unchanged by Venice triumph

South Korean film director Kim Ki-Duk said Tuesday he would stick to his maverick ways after winning the coveted Golden Lion prize at the Venice film festival for his anti-capitalist movie “Pieta.”

“Pieta mirrors my philosophy ... I will continue to produce interesting and meaningful movies like this film,” Kim said.

The eccentric director, long-treated as an outcast at home, won the top award in Venice for the film, which tells of a brutal loan shark who struggles for redemption after he meets a woman claiming to be his mother.

Director Kim Ki-duk, the winner of the Golden Lion prize at this year’s Venice International Film Festival for his film “Pieta,” smiles during a press conference at Megabox, Dongdaemun, Tuesday. (Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald)

It was the first time a South Korean movie has walked off with the top award at any of the big three international film festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice.

Kim said the film reflected his life as a manual labourer in clapped-out workshops in Seoul in his teenage years.

“Extreme capitalism is the theme of my movie. In Pieta I tried to depict the life of people being destroyed by money,” he told reporters in Seoul.

The 51-year-old has often been criticised at home for his signature tales of dark, violent and twisted characters in South Korea’s back streets since his low-budget debut film “Crocodile” in 1996.

Kim admitted he had often been shunned by investors despite a glittering resume that includes a host off international directorial awards.

“But this prize proves there are many fans who have silently supported my movies,” he said of the Golden Lion success. (AFP)